The Battle Is For Your Mind – {Part 2}

1. “Bless the LORD O my soul and all that is within me. Bless His holy Name and DO NOT FORGET ALL Of HIS BENEFITS,” – Psalm 103:1-2

Your alarm goes off, a new day begins and you have entered knowingly or unknowingly a battle for your mind! Perhaps you did not need an alarm, as you awoke, immediately in the midst of trying to wake up thoughts come, sometimes just one, you pause and think on it and it can set the tone for your whole day. You have heard it said, you cannot stop birds from flying over your head, but you can choose to stop them from building a nest on your head. The evil one shoots as Paul says in Ephesians 6, “fiery darts,” they can be of fear of the future, failures of the past, anxieties, despair and if you begin to “embrace” them and dwell on them, before you have even got out of bed, you find yourself, stressed, that sinking feeling once again. Sound familiar? The fight is for your faith ultimately and the evil one attacks your mind. The battle is on and you must and can win it BY CHOOSING TO LEARN THE WAY OF THE LORD.

LESSONS FROM A DEAD MAN!

Though he is long dead, yet the Lord  has preserved his Word to teach and encourage us and point us in the right way to think in the battle! He teaches us that we must get in the first thought. We choose what to think on. We choose to grab as it were our soul, all our faculties and focus on blessing the Lord!

The psalmist like a general arousing a sleeping army to make haste break camp and move on, so the psalmist calls his soul, his inner being to attention and “bless the LORD.” Twice he uses the same phrase. Let there be no doubt, his soul and all that is within him has been called to attention to focus attention on the practice of blessing the LORD.

To bless Him is to speak well of, some translations say “praise.” There is no question of whether the soul has favorable circumstances or whether you ” feel” like it. It is neither a matter of “feelings” or the crass self life which protests ,”why? What do I get from doing so.” It is a matter of great sacred privilege to bless the LORD!
The term LORD is used elsewhere to speak of Him as

• God -Gen. 2:4
• Provider- Gen 22
• Self Existent -Ex3:13-15
• Covenant keeping- Deut 7:9
• Unchanging- Mal 3:6
• Sovereign -Ish 45

To This One is the call to focus on, irrespective of favorable circumstances or not, feelings will not dictate whether to Bless Him or not. It is not up for debate. It is a matter of doxology- the praising of God! The choice of the will is settled and whether the feelings kick and scream in protest is not the issue. The issue, the psalmist says ” all that is within me” will bless the LORD. In particular He bless”s His Holy , which speaks of “other than, pure,”Name. “Name”speaks of His character. Focus on His Holy Name. Isaiah the prophet in the year Uzzuah the king died saw the LORD high and lifted up, and the response to His Sovereign reign and to His holiness is heard ” Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD, God Almighty,”- ( Isaiah 6:1-3). The occupation of Heaven is the beauty and splendor of the Holiness of God! Worship of Him. Ascribing worth to Him is the proper response. Exalt Him!

The rallying call to the soul this moment is to…
1.- BLESS THE LORD
2.-DO NOT FORGET ALL HIS BENEFITS!

 

“STONES OF REMEMBRANCE.”

“WE ARE GOOD AT FORGETTING HIM! We too easily forget our responsibility to bless Him and what God has done for us. In earlier times when God would do something wonderful the people would commemorate by putting a heap of stones together as a way of reminder. Should a father and child pass such a place and the child ask the father what they symbolize the father would be reminded of some specific act of God in that place and share with the child. They were called,” stones of remembrance.” Our lives are filled with personal works of God. The understanding that the cross was for me. The provision of forgiveness of all my sins through The Lord Jesus. Provision of people to help me understand who I am “in Christ.” The provision of the Bible. The provision of the ability to read it, or listen to it. The provision of His meeting countless personal needs. All of these and a hundred thousand more are call for personal reflection and celebration of OUR LORD, and “stones of remembrance,” and with each a reminder to not forget, but to BLESS THE LORD!

Ask Him to remind you of Himself today and to bring to remembrance His provisions for you and as He doe,s the acceptable response is to BLESS the LORD!

3.- TALK TO YOURSELF;  Too often we “listen” to thoughts that come to our mind, ones such as anxiety to divide our mind from devotion to the LORD such as the ” what if”s,” the fears of the future or the failures of the past. All to keep us from living in the “now” and crowding out focusing on His holy character -forgetting His benefits.  We must, you and I- must CHOOSE TO PROTEST BY FAITH,  the thoughts that distract, discourage etc  through a deliberate act of your will, my will, CHOOSE in the midst to BLESS THE LORD. He is worthy to be praised and spoken well of!  We each are responsible for ourselves and also to encourage one another of God’s ways.

CUT BAIT-
A wise fisherman who catches fish uses certain baits for certain fish depending on what he is fishing for. The whole purpose is to allure the fish, get their attention, distract them, entice them and catch them. Your evil foe uses “baits” such as fears of the future, failures of the past, anxieties, despair, hopelessness, guilt, condemnation, pride, and such like, all to capture your attention, divert you away from focusing on the LORD and being occupied with Him, His character, promises, kingdom. If you notice, the “baits” used of such “fiery darts” are thoughts all devoid of the LORD’S LOVE FOR YOU. Discouragement, accusations, fears, anxieties, despair, guilt over past sins and failures all lead you and leave you focusing on yourself! the evil one has “baited” you and you have chose to let him hook you! The enemy will not point you to God, His provisions for you. Your new standing of Grace In Christ. Your Justification by God through Christ. The Blood of Christ to cleanse you. The Faithfulness of Christ to meet you. No, the “baits” he uses are all to separate you in your THINKING CORRECTLY ABOUT THE LORD! It is time to “cut bait”, turn away to… BLESS THE LORD...

• THINK ON THE TRUTH ABOUT THE LORD,
• THINK ABOUT THE TRUTH OF HIS BENEFITS FOR YOU “IN CHRIST.”
• THINK ABOUT HIS GOODNESS AND PROVISIONS FOR YOU.
• THINK ABOUT HIS PRESENT TENSE GRACE.
• THINK ON THE LORD, LOVER OF YOUR SOUL.

TALK TO YOURSELF WHEN YOU AWAKE OF HIM;

Win the battle by getting in the first thought. You may have to fight your way through other thoughts but persevere. PRAISE HIM, BLESS HIM, SPEAK WELL OF HIM!

THIS MORNING ON AWAKING,FOR ME IT WAS TO – “Bless the LORD, O my soul and all that is within me, bless His holy name and do not forget all his benefits.” I have had terrible debilitating painful weeks and more so in recent days. I have spoken several times. I have had to cancel three different flights to  try to get home because of the debilitating pain. Several nights in a hotel, too weak to move…“But God…” is enabling me to THINK on Him and to FIGHT the fight of faith in my mind. To be sure, discouragement and despair and pain have been my companions at times but then He breaks in with a verse, truth to cause my mind to turn away to Him. It has not stopped the pain but at times I have by His grace remembered to bless His Name. HE has brought praise verses back to my mind. I share this to encourage you, What you deposit in your mind of His Word, He can bring back. If you are too ill to be in His Word. Take comfort His Word is in you and He can bring it back like He did for me at 4 am this morning and it was these verses… to “BLESS THE LORD…” I have been on the road for nearly two weeks now… and trying to get home has at times been to much to make it to the airport. I can fret, I can worry…and have done those but I can by His grace choose to BLESS the LORD in my circumstances. The battle is for my mind, your mind, and the circumstances may not be what we would choose, but what we can choose in the circumstances and must learn to is to THINK on Him. The circumstances, I may not be able to change as you may not in yours.

We may not  we be able to change our circumstances but we can CHOOSE in our  circumstances to Change Our THINKING to – BLESS THE LORD...

and REMEMBER HIS BENEFITS… AND BLESS HIM FOR HIS CHARACTER… AND BLESS HIM FOR HIS GOODNESS…. SPEAK the truth to ourselves and choose to BLESS THE LORD.

For days I had been bedridden in a hotel room. At times to get up and even walk to the bathroom I seemed to be “ambushed by pain” throughout my body with this muscle disease. Like a blanket of pain engulfs me if I get up to walk. Speaking has been difficult. A dear couple have taken me in and extended wonderful hospitality and help, in the midst of their own serious trials and the young wife very ill and herself in debilitating pain, that causes her to be bed ridden most of the day. They have reached out and provided a room for me to stay in. This is God’s kindness and reasons for me to Bless Him, for His provision for me at this time. Another dear friend who is in the midst of pain drove several times yesterday from his town to where I am to bring me three different medicines  my kind Dr had called in to try and ease my pain. In our circumstances we must see Him.To have “eyes of faith” to see Him working through His people to show us His Kindness and these are His love in action. My stomach is nauseated from pain, my mind is weary from the pain and sleep deprivation,  yet in His mercy upon waking this morning after a few hours of sleep… He encouraged my soul to THINK on Him and He brought these verses to mind to dwell on Him and He has given me as He has you the power to bless the LORD {See 2 Peter 1:3-4 to encourage you}

You may not have won the battle this morning, maybe because you have a pattern of allowing the” birds” to build their nest in your head- that seems silly doesn’t it…but yet how “silly” we are to allow thoughts that don’t exalt Him or edify us from His Word to built “a nest” of anxious thoughts, fearful thoughts, discouraging thoughts and on and on the list goes and we passively it seems but in reality we “feed” those thoughts of  fears, anxieties by choosing to NEGLECT THE LORD and instead “EMBRACE” THESE THOUGHTS- AGAIN- as if the LORD does not exist! Maybe you have chosen to allow the evil one to allure you again, baiting you with the same thing {Have you ever noticed he uses the same thing “BAIT,” with fear, anxieties, the what ifs, failures of the past etc,, to bait you and capture your THOUGHT LIFE} “As a man thinks so he is.” Paul wrote we are to think on the truth and ..let our minds dwell there. So often we think on lies!

 

A CHOICE TO BE MADE AND CONTINUALLY SO;

You choose to THINK ON THE LORD
YOU CHOSE TO TALK TO YOURSELF THE TRUTH ABOUT THE LORD
AND RIGHT NOW- “CUT BAIT…” GET RID OF THE NEST AND CHOOSE TO  USE HIS WORD…. TO THINK RIGHTLY ABOUT HIM , TALK THE TRUTH TO YOURSELF ABOUT HIM… AND IRRESPECTIVE OF HOW YOU FEEL…. “BLESS THE LORD!!!

The battle is for your mind, it is warfare. Spiritual warfare.”But God …” has given you His Word , a mighty weapon, Paul calls it “the sword of the Spirit.” to dismantle and take down those thoughts that seek to distract you from devotion to the LORD and His business today. One of those weapons is …PRAISE. Martin Luther once said, “the devil the proud spirit cannot abide praise.” When Jehoshaphat went into battle they sent the singers ahead of the army. {2 Chronicles 20}

PRAISE … is great for the morale. Praise – God inhabits the praises of His people. Paul says rejoicing is a “safeguard.” {See Phil 3:1} The Word “safeguard” was used to speak of keeping you from tripping up.

CHOSE TO BLESS THE LORD RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE. BLESS HIS HOLY NAME. BLESS HIM FOR ALL HIS BENEFITS. YOU CHOOSE WHAT AND WHOM YOU WILL THINK ON…. Ask the LORD to help train your mind to THINK on Him when you awaken.

Get in the first thoughts, sometimes you have to battle other thoughts, but..,

God’s Word is your Weapon.

The Holy Spirit is your Power.

The LORD is your FOCUS…

BLESS the LORD O my soul and ALL that is within me, Bless His Holy Name and DO NOT forget all His benefits

 

PERSONAL APPLICATION;

•  Write out Psalm 103:1-2 On a 4 by 5 card. Place by your bed. By a mirror. Carry one on you and when you have time look at it meditate upon Him, the phrases and BLESS THE LORD.
•  Encourage someone today with the truth that the battle for their mind is not unique to them.
•  God’s power enables us to begin new patterns. Get in the first thought of the day and continue to choose to look away to Him. THINK on the TRUTH. SPEAK THE TRUTH TO YOURSELF. SHARE THE TRUTH WITH SOMEONE ELSE

Lessons from a dead man… the psalmist though long dead…. still speaks lessons to the living… this is the mercy of the LORD and one of His benefits for which to bless Him for. Teach someone this truth from this verse…. and pass on to a future generation {see Psalm 71:18}

Sending this with love, to seek to encourage you  in this journey of faith. You are not alone. He is with you! The battle is ofr your mind, but you have everything you need in the fight .. Use His weapon- His Word and BLESS HIM…. Let the praises begin…..